Exploring the Meaning of Cheimon in Greek

χειμών names the season “winter,” marking times when conditions, travel, and plans are shaped by the year’s cold and stormy stretch. In the New Testament it appears in sayings about reading the weather, in instructions about a perilous flight, in a note of festival timing, in a crisis at sea, and in an urgent request for a companion to arrive before the season turns.

Occurrences

“In the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but you can’t discern the signs of the times!” (Matthew 16:3)

Here χειμών belongs to the ordinary skill of forecasting: a “red and threatening” sky in the morning points to “foul weather.” The word anchors the saying in recognizable seasonal experience—when winterlike conditions are expected, people look at the sky and anticipate rough weather. In this scene, χειμών functions as the background assumption that weather can be read and that certain times of year carry an expectation of storms and cold.

“Pray that your flight will not be in the winter, nor on a Sabbath,” (Matthew 24:20)

In this warning, χειμών marks a window of increased hardship for “your flight.” The command to pray is tied to timing: the difficulty is not the act of fleeing itself but being forced to do it in a season that makes movement more dangerous and exhausting. Winter is paired with another limiting factor (“nor on a Sabbath”), so χειμών contributes the idea of constraint—conditions outside one’s control that can turn an already urgent escape into something worse.

“Pray that your flight won’t be in the winter.” (Mark 13:18)

This parallel line sharpens the point by isolating χειμών as the single circumstance to be avoided. The emphasis falls on the season itself: winter is the period that would intensify the severity of the flight. The concise form makes χειμών carry the weight of the practical difficulties that accompany winter travel—cold, wet, and the kind of weather that turns distance into danger.

“It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem.” (John 10:22)

In John’s note of time, χειμών situates the scene within a specific season of the year. The sentence is a calendar marker: the setting is Jerusalem during the Feast of the Dedication, and χειμών supplies the seasonal atmosphere surrounding that festival time. The word contributes a temporal frame rather than an argument: it tells the reader what part of the year this episode belongs to and invites the scene to be heard with winter’s feel in mind.

“When neither sun nor stars shone on us for many days, and no small storm pressed on us, all hope that we would be saved was now taken away.” (Acts 27:20)

Although χειμών is not stated in this single verse, the passage depicts the kind of prolonged darkness and relentless storm that winter readily evokes. The details “neither sun nor stars,” “for many days,” and “no small storm pressed on us” portray conditions associated with the season’s danger for travel, especially at sea. In this narrative moment, χειμών supplies the seasonal lens that makes sense of a sustained, oppressive storm pattern and the mounting despair: winter is the time when weather can blot out guidance (“sun nor stars”) and batter a voyage until “all hope” collapses.

“Be diligent to come before winter. Eubulus salutes you, as do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers.” (2 Timothy 4:21)

Here χειμών serves as a hard deadline. “Be diligent to come” is not a vague request; it is bounded by the approaching season. Winter is treated as a turning point after which travel or meeting becomes more difficult or uncertain. The greetings that follow reinforce the concreteness of the situation—real people in a real moment—while χειμών marks the urgency: the window to arrive is closing with the season.

Sense and Usage

Across these contexts, χειμών works less like a neutral date on a calendar and more like a season with predictable pressure on human activity. In Matthew 16:3 it belongs to the everyday competence of reading atmospheric signs: the threatening sky suggests weather that will hinder ordinary plans. In the flight sayings (Matthew 24:20; Mark 13:18), winter is not merely a time reference; it is the season that would amplify vulnerability in an emergency. The instruction to pray assumes that timing can change the experience of suffering: winter brings added obstacles that are neither chosen nor easily overcome.

John 10:22 uses χειμών in a simpler, scene-setting way, but even there the season does quiet narrative work. It anchors the episode within a particular part of the year, and that temporal anchoring can shape how the reader imagines the setting—colder air, shorter days, and the kind of environment in which people cluster and events take place under winter’s constraints.

Acts 27:20 shows χειμών at the level of lived peril. The verse’s focus on the disappearance of “sun nor stars” and the persistence of a storm captures the experience of being cut off from the normal aids that make travel possible. In such conditions, time stretches (“many days”), and the season becomes a force that bears down—“pressed on us”—until emotional and practical resources fail. χειμών, as “winter,” frames this kind of relentless weather as seasonally plausible and narratively significant: winter is when journeys can become survival situations.

Finally, 2 Timothy 4:21 presents χειμών as the boundary line for fellowship and aid. The request is not simply “come soon” but “come before winter,” which treats winter as a known threshold after which movement, communication, or meeting becomes harder. In this usage, χειμών carries a social weight: it governs the possibilities of presence and support.

Seasonal Imagery

In these passages χειμών gathers a cluster of concrete images: a threatening sky that signals foul weather (Matthew 16:3), the prospect of an urgent flight made harsher by the season (Matthew 24:20; Mark 13:18), a festival scene placed in a winter setting (John 10:22), days of storm and darkness that crush hope at sea (Acts 27:20), and a personal appeal shaped by the approaching seasonal cutoff (2 Timothy 4:21). Winter appears as the time when nature’s conditions press on human decisions—when plans must be timed, travel becomes risky, and urgency is sharpened by the year’s cold edge.

Sources: Lexical data from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and the Translators Brief Lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (STEPBible, CC BY). Occurrence data from the Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (STEPBible, CC BY). Scripture quotations from the World English Bible (public domain).